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Fido & Me — GoSniff

“Well, it’s not going to fit on the end of your snout. That’s just a hunch, but I think it’s a good one.”

“Arummphh. Uraggh.”

“Fido, just what in the world are you doing?”

“I have a new GoSniff, but I can’t get it to work right.”

“GoSniff? What in the world is a GoSniff?”

“It’s like a GoPro, but those things are useless for dogs.”

“Do tell.”

“One of the Visitor Dogs from San Diego was up over the weekend, and she said there’s nothing in the world like a GoSniff. All you have to do is point it out the window, and it records sniffs, scents, smells, P&L’s, and so on.”

“P&L’s? Really?”

“You just point it any old which way, and it records the sniffs, and then you can play them back, just like humans do with their GoPro movies.”

“OK,” I said, “what have you recorded so far?”

“I have no idea! Hey hey hey hey! I just got it!”

“Lemme take a look, you big red lug.”

Sure enough, on the outside of the camera there is a window that indicates the number of files saved. Fido had three. I turned it on playback.

“Whoa!” I said. “This smells, um, like pee!”

“Not just any pee, no siree,” Fido said. “This is the pee from my new girlfriend from San Diego. This sure beats pee-mail. While you’re busy doing what it is you’re doing [me, I was reading the paper, feet up on the coffee table, a cup of Joe by my side] I can just lie here and dream about her!”

The second file was a little more to my liking.

“Fido, this one smells like dirt and pumice, a hint of snow and…”

“Barbecue!” he finished.

Sure enough, that very afternoon, with his GoSniff fastened snugly around his neck, we walked uphill, under the chairlift at Eagle Lodge and, now that I remembered it, there WAS the scent of barbeque in the air.

“Someone was enjoying the mild day,” Fido shrugged.

But now Fido had a problem.

In the manual, there is a section on how to fasten the GoSniff to the outside of a car, but Fido had got it all mixed up and thought it was supposed to go over his nose.

“Aw, you good dog, you. This goes right below where you like to poke your nose out of the car. It’s not exactly on you, but when we get home and play it back, you’ll get the same sniffs.”

“We dogs have very particular beaks,” he allowed. “It can be a game of inches.”

We got home and plugged in the playback.

“A miracle!” he yelped. “It’s the June Lake Loop, all over again, and again, and again. Put the Loop on a loop!”

“Fido, the problem with these GoSniffs, is that you might become habituated to carrying it around all the time, then boring your friends to death with your edits.”

Fido lay on the floor with his GoSniff, and I could see his eyelids beginning to droop.